It Worked: Innovation and Improvisation in the Royal Army Medical Corps

Jessica Meyer examines how new ideas and technologies helped to push military medical care forwards during the First World War. 

The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) played a key role in the British war effort during the First World War, saving lives and preserving military manpower through the provision of medical care and prevention of disease.

Over the course of the conflict, the work of the RAMC developed dramatically in terms of both its structural organisation and employment of innovative medical practices.

In this incisive talk, Jessica Meyer will focus on the latter developments to explore how new technologies, such as motor ambulances and the Carrell-Dakin method of wound drainage, shaped the ways in which care was delivered. She will also highlight how improvisations conducted by individuals, both doctors and men of the ranks, played a significant role in the RAMC’s achievements during four years of conflict.

About the speaker

Jessica Meyer

Jessica Meyer is Professor of British Social and Cultural History at the University of Leeds. She holds an MPhil in European Studies and a PhD in Modern History from the Univerity of Cambridge. Her research interests lie at the intersection of histories of gender, medicine and warfare. She is the co-host of ‘Oh! What a Lovely Podcast’ with Dr Chris Kempshall and Angus Wallace.